SiteGround Tutorials

---

Joomla 1.5 Tutorial

This Joomla tutorial is dedicated to showing you the basics of the Joomla 1.5 version. After reading it, you will be able to create a fully-functioning website with Joomla in 15 minutes. If you don't have a Joomla website yet, you can sign up here and get a free Joomla 1.5 installation!

Why use Joomla 1.5

Joomla 1.5 is suitable for building almost any website. It is absolutely free (GNU / GPL license) and provides unmet features for creating dynamic web content.

Building a simple website with Joomla

In the first part of the tutorial we will be building a simple Joomla website containing:

• two static pages about the company and its services;
• one contact us page with mailing functionality;
• one poll for finding out what visitors think about the new website;

We have included the Contact us page and the Poll just to show a small part of Joomla's advanced features.

Advanced options in Joomla

In the second part of the tutorial we will explain some of the most popular Advanced options in Joomla. Here you will learn how to:

• Make your Joomla URLs SEO-friendly for better search engine indexing;
• Add a counter to your Joomla site;
• Change Joomla templates;
• How to remove the author / date posted from Joomla articles (Enabled by default);
• Optimize your website for better performance;
• And more.

Joomla 1.5 installation

Joomla can be installed on your website by posting a request ticket to your hosting company helpdesk or by using a third party tool like Fantastico. 

SiteGround web hosting offers fast and free installation of Joomla 1.5 with its Joomla hosting package. You can request the Joomla 1.5 version from the Customer Area: Get Support Section -> HelpDesk - request a script installation (under the Hosting related information and assistance section).

Joomla 1.5 Installation

The system requirements for installing Joomla 1.5 are:

• Apache 1.x or 2.x
• PHP 4.3 or above
• MySQL 3.23 or above
• For local tests on your computer, you can use the WAMP package.

SiteGround web hosting offers the perfect environment for running Joomla 1.5. SiteGround web servers are optimized for hosting Joomla 1.5 sites.

Once ready for the installation, please follow the steps below:

Step 1. Create a Mysql database and add an user to it. This can be done easily with Cpanel by following the MySQL database tutorial.

In case you are not using Cpanel refer to the MySQL manual on creating databases and adding users to it.

Step 2. Next on your Desktop and create a folder called upload.

Step 3. Go to Joomla download page. Download the .zip file to the upload folder and extract it there.

Step 4. Upload all the content from upload to the directory on the server where Joomla 1.5 will be installed. SiteGround recommends using FTP for this purpose and the FTP tutorial will guide you through the necessary steps.

Step 5. Open the URL of the newly uploaded Joomla files. This will be either http://your_domain_name.com or a subdirectory such as http://your_domain_name.com/example.

Step 6. You will be redirected to the Joomla installation page:

On the first page of the installation you will be able to choose the Language for the installation.

The selected language will be valid only for the installation process. Once installed Joomla will be back in English.

We recommend selecting "English" in order to follow easier the next steps from the tutorial.

Step 7. Next Joomla will perform a pre-installation check about the system environment. Failing to meet a requirement or recommendation may cause functional and security problems later.

Here is a screenshot of all Joomla 1.5 requirements met on a standard SiteGround hosting account:

Step 8. Once you make sure all requirements are met, click on [Next] from the top right menu.

Step 9. Next you will have to accept Joomla's license and click on [Next] to continue.

Step 10. The following page will ask about the MySQL details for the new Joomla 1.5 installation.

There are hints and explanations about all fields in case you have difficulties with providing the needed information:

Step 11. Next screen is about the FTP configuration. Leave it to the default settings and just click [Next] from the top right menu.

Step 12. From the page that appears you will be able to complete the final Joomla 1.5 settings specifying your email and specifying the admin password. Click on [Next] to save the progress.

In our example we will not use the option Install Sample Data because it will cause confusion and require time to remove all the data populated later.

Step 13. In the last page of the installation wizard you will receive a confirmation that Joomla has been successfully installed.

Before being able to access your new Joomla 1.5 you must delete the installation directory. For this purpose use FTP as described in Step 3.

Next you might be intested in reading Creating Site with Joomla 1.5.

Creating a website with Joomla 1.5

Don't have a Joomla 1.5 website yet?
Sign up here and get a free Joomla 1.5 installation!

• Logging into the Joomla admin area
• Creating Articles in Joomla
  
• Creating a Contact us page
• Linking Articles to the Menu
• Creating a Poll in Joomla 1.5

Logging into the Joomla admin area

After having Joomla 1.5 installed we can begin adding our content. In this example we assume the domain we use is your_domain_name.com and Joomla's admin panel is at:

http://your_domain_name.com/administrator

Please, make sure to change your_domain_name.com to the real domain name of your website, when following this tutorial.

Please, enter your login information in the Joomla! Administration Login screen:

Creating articles in Joomla 

If you have installed Joomla through Fantastico or from source with the sample data, you already have a few articles created and published. You can take a look at how they are written and organized in order to learn intuitively some good practices. To see them go to Content, Article Manager from the top admin menu.

There you will see many articles listed in the form of links. Once you click on a link, you enter the Edit mode for an article. When you are done with exploring an article, click on the Close button to exit it. This will discard all changes you have made.

Before building our first article, we will clean all the default ones to avoid confusion. For this purpose go back to Content, Article Manager from the top admin menu.

Then select all the articles by checking the the first radio button in the column and click on the [Trash] button from the top admin menu. 

Next we will create our first article "About us". From the top admin menu, click on [New]. 

Then make the following changes:

Title: About us
Alias: (leave it blank)
Section: Uncategorized
Category: Uncategorized
Published: Yes (If it is not published, it will show to the visitors. It will remain only as a draft.)
Frontpage: Yes (This will allow it to appear the first page of our site.)

In the main text field we will specify the information about our company...

After that we would like to place inline our company's logo. For this purpose we click on the image icon at the bottom of the page: 

Since our logo is not uploaded yet, we click first on the [Upload file] link in the prompted window. First you have to browse your local computer and find the logo. Once the file is found, click on [Start Upload] to upload it. 

Next you will see an acknowledgement that the file has been successfully uploaded. Now it can be found in the upper part of the window along with the default Joomla images. We click on logo.png (or whatever the name of your logo is) to select it and then on [Insert] to insert it in our article.

The logo's position in the article can be easily adjusted by dragging it to where you'd like to have it.

At last we save this article by clicking on the [Save] button.

Next we will add the "Our services" page. We will follow the same steps as before: from the top administrator's menu, go to Content -> Article manager.

Then we click on [New]. Again we will set the same Section and Category for our page: "Uncategorized". This time we will describe our services and what we offer. Note how feature-rich the default Joomla text editor is. Its menu is intuitive and has familiar design.

After we are through with the editing we save the page with the [Save] button from the top-right panel.

Creating a website with Joomla 1.5: Contact us page

Creating a Contact us Page

Next we will add a "Contact us" page with an online mail form. We first need to create a new Contacts Category. For this purpose we will go to Components -> Contacts -> Categories:

Then we click on [New]. Since we plan to have a simple Contact Us page, we will create only one single category called again "General" and click on [Save]. As you understand, here categories are also used for better content organizing.

Then we go to Components -> Contacts -> Contacts:

We click on [New] and fill in our information. You have to make sure the email you entered is valid since all the mails you receive via this contact form will be sent to it.

In order to avoid having your contact's name duplicated later, from the right box "Contacts parameters" check the button Hide next to "Name".

We are leaving unchanged the rest of the default options, which suit our basic needs and click on [Save] from the top-right menu.

Creating a website with Joomla 1.5: Links

Linking Articles to the Menu

Now we have to make sure our pages can be accessed. For this purpose we will link them in the site menu. From the admin panel, go to Menus -> Main Menu*.

First we will delete all the default links. For this purpose check the first radio button to select all links and click on Trash. (There will be a warning "You cannot trash the default menu item" which can be safely disregarded)

We will add links to our articles and the "Contact us" page. For this purpose please, click on [New] from the top-left menu. Now we have to select the item type. In our case it will be Internal link - Article - Article Layout:

Next we have to fill in the information about the links. We will call the link "About us". Then from the left Parameters - Basic we click on [Select]:

Then appears a box with all our pages and we click on "About us":

Finally we save the link by clicking on [Save] from the top-right menu.

How to set a page to be default?

When we are still in the Menu Item Manager, we will set our page "About us" as default. For this purpose we check its radio button and click on [Default] from the top menu:

At this point we can optionally remove also the system placed link "Home" because we will not need it.

After that we will add a link to our other page "Our services". We click on [New] from the top menu in the Menu Item Manager, select Article -> Article Layout.

Then we fill the information about the link "Our services" and select it from Parameters - Basic. We click on "Our services" link from the box and click on [Save] to finalize the operation.

How to add the Contact us page to the menu?

Finally we will add a link to the "Contact us" page. For this purpose we click on the [New] icon from the top menu and choose:Internal Link -> Contacts -> Category -> Standard Contact Layout.

Then we fill the information about our new menu item "Contact us". For our basic needs we don't have to change anything else but the "Title" and we can safely click on [Save].

Creating a website with Joomla 1.5: Poll

Creating a Poll in Joomla 1.5

Now we will place a poll for finding out what visitors think about our new site. For this purpose from the top menu choose Components -> Polls:

We are going to create a new poll by clicking on [New] from the top - right menu. We will call the poll: "What do you think about our site?".

In the left menu we will list all the options on the poll: "Great", "Not bad", "Awful".

To save the new poll, we click on [Save] from the top right menu.

Now the poll has to be made public, i.e. to be published. For this purpose we click on Extensions -> Module Manager from the top menu:

Then we choose [New] from the top - right menu and find Poll from the options listed and check it.

Then we click on "Next" from the top - right menu.

We will make the following changes

1. Set the title to: What do you think about our new site?
2. Set "Show title" to "No".
3. From the right box, Module Parameters, Poll we select our poll called "What do you think about our new site".

Finally we click on [Save] from the top right menu and we will have a poll on our frontpage.

Advanced options in Joomla 1.5

In the Advanced sections of the Joomla 1.5 tutorial we listed some interesting tips about how to enhance the performance of your website. Here you will learn how to:

• Make the Joomla URLs search engine friendly (SEF) for better search engine indexing;
• Add a counter to your Joomla site;
• Change Joomla templates and where to search for free Joomla templates;
• How to remove the author / date posted from Joomla articles (Enabled by default);
• Optimize the performance of your website;
• and more.

Advanced options in Joomla 1.5: SEF URLs

Search engine optimization

To have the website better indexed by the search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, the pages have to be with meaningful names. That's why we will use the Joomla's SEO feature.

It can be enabled from Site -> Global configuration in the admin panel.

In this page you can change the Metadata Settings about your site along with other useful information. Though we are interested rather in the left part - "SEO Settings" and we will change "Search Engine Friendly URLs" to Yes. After that we will click on [Save] from the top right menu.

For example, this will change the link to the "About us" page from:

http://your_domain_name.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=2

to

http://your_domain_name.com/index.php/About us (yes, that's right with the blank space)

Andvanced options in Joomla 1.5: Counter

Adding a counter to your site

Joomla 1.5 offers an easy way to add an advanced web counter to your site. For this purpose log in your Joomla's admin panel, Extensions -> Module Manager:

From the top right menu choose [New]. From the listed options check "Statistics" and click "Next" from the top right panel. The next page has many advanced counter options, and we will change only:

Title: Counter
Show Title: No
Hit Counter: Yes (From the right box)

Finally we click on [Save] from the top-right menu in order to save the counter on our site.

Joomla 1.5 Templates

Changing the default template of Joomla 1.5

One of Joomla's great features is the option to easily change its templates. SiteGround is proud to provide free of charge some of the best, even a Joomla 1.5 templates.

When you find the template you like, download it to your local computer.

Then log in your Joomla admin panel (in our case your_domain_name.com/administrator) and go to Extensions -> Install/Uninstall:

There is a box "Upload Package File" and you have to use [Browse..] to find the file you have just downloaded. Once you find the file you click on [Upload File & Install].

Once you have your new template installed, you have to apply it. This can be done from Joomla's admin panel, Extensions -> Template manager:

Check the radio button next to your new template and from the top right menu choose "Default".

That's all for having your site re-designed with a brand new look in just 2 easy to follow steps.

Quick Answers to Common Requests about Joomla 1.5

Below we will answer some common questions about Joomla:

• How to remove the author / date posted from Joomla articles?
• How to change the domain name for your Joomla 1.5 site?
• How to speed up Joomla 1.5?
• How to allow user registrations in Joomla 1.5

How to remove the author / date posted from Joomla articles?

From Joomla's admin panel go to Content - Article Manager:

Then click on "Preferences" from the top-right menu. A box will appear with all configurable options including author / date posted. Simply set to "Hide" any of the options you'd like disabled.

How to change the domain name for your Joomla 1.5 site?

Previous Joomla versions required a manual re-configuration when changing the domain name of your site. Joomla 1.5 does NOT require such a change and it adapts to your domain name dynamically.

How to speed up Joomla 1.5?

Joomla's performance is usually slowed down when:

• Extra features are enabled such as stats and polls;
• Additional components, modules, plugins, themes are installed;
• There are too many items on the pages.

Fortunately Joomla provides an easy way to speed up its performance by enabling its caching function. This can be done from Joomla's admin panel Site -> Global Configuration.

Then click on the link "System" under Global Configuration:

There you will find a box called "Cache Settings" and you have to check "Yes" besides the Cache option:

You can leave the rest options unchanged and commit the change clicking on [Save] from the top right menu.

Enabling the cache may prevent you from immediately seeing changes on your site. In some cases you might have to wait for the cache's timeout (15 minutes) before seeing the changes.

How to allow user registrations in Joomla 1.5

By default user registration is allowed in Joomla 1.5. You will just have to enable the login form. From the admin panel go to Extensions -> Module Manager:

Then from the top right menu click on [New] and check the "Login" option:

Click on "Next" from the top-right menu to proceed. From the options that appear we will make only one change:

Title: Login

Finally save the progress by clicking on [Save] from the top menu and you will find a login form on your site.

Please, feel free to contact us if you have any questions or recommendations about this tutorial at: tutorials 'at' siteground.com

Joomla 1.5 Upgrade

How to upgrade from Joomla 1.0.x to Joomla 1.5?

Below we are going to show you how you can upgrade your Joomla 1.0.x to the stable Joomla 1.5 version.

We would like to note that it is highly recommended to backup your existing Joomla web site before you proceed with the migration process.

Joomla 1.0.x to 1.5 migration requires a little bit more tweaking than the normal Joomla upgrades.

Step 1: Install the Migrator component

The first step we should follow is to install the Migrator component to our existing Joomla web site. You can download the Migrator component here.

For our tutorial we are going to use the migrator_rc6.tgz archive. Left-click on the migrator_rc6.tgz link and save the archive on your PC. The archive itself consits of a Joomla component, which is actually taking care of the migration process. Fortunately installing Joomla components is not a big deal. Go to your Joomla administrative control panel (http://www.your-domain.com/administrator) and log in:

Once you are in from the top Joomla navigation menu mouse over the Installers tool and select Components from the drop down menu:

Click on [Upload Package File] and locate the migrator_rc6.tgz from your hard disk. Confirm the installation by clicking on the [Upload file & install] button:

Press [Continue..] at the Upload Component - Success screen. Once the component is installed mouse over the Components tool available at the top Joomla menu and select Migrator:

The component menu allows you to migrate your current Joomla 1.0.x data to the Joomla 1.5 database format.

Our tutorial covers only the steps to migrate a base Joomla web site without any third party extensions and components installed. However, if you use any such, make sure to imput their migration scripts by using the 3rd Party Information and Add 3rd Party Migrators options offered by the Migrator component:

Any additional components / modules/ mambots should have migration scripts provided by their respective developers on the offical project sites.

Step 2: Create Migration SQL File

To proceed with the database migration select the last link available near to the bottom of the Migrator component page - Create Migration SQL File.

If the things go smoothly and there are no errors reported during the SQL data export process, you will see the following screen:

The next step is to download the extracted SQL from your 1.0.x Joomla:

You can now download your SQL dump by clicking on the Download link available on the right section of the page and upload it into your Joomla! 1.5 installation. Later, when importing this SQL file into your 1.5 installation, make sure to select Load Migration Script and use the prefix 'jos_' (by default).

Step 3: Perform a clean Joomla 1.5 installation

Next we will perform a clean Joomla 1.5 installation. First obtain the latest installation package from:

http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/frs/?action=FrsReleaseBrowse&frs_package_id=2892

Select Joomla-1.5.0.zip from the file list and download it to your Desktop. Next log in cPanel and go to File manager. Once you open it, you would need to create a new directory called dev (since we are using it for development) inside your public_html directory:

Change your current working directory to the public_html/dev/ one. Click on the [Upload] icon available at the top File manager navigation menu, select the Joomla-1.5.0.zip archive from your Desktop and it will be automatically uploaded:

Go back to the File manager, select the Joomla-1.5.0.zip installation archive by clicking on its name and hit the [Extract] button available near to the top right corner of the File manager:

It will ask you for the directory where the archive should be extracted. Just leave it to the default value and confirm.

Another window will open which will show you the log from the extract porcess and if there are no errors reported you are ready to proceed with the next step.

Open the dev folder by visiting http://www.your-website.com/dev. You will see the Joomla start installation screen. Select your language, you should already have a database and user to fill them in.

Proceed with the installation further untill you reach Step 6: Configuration:

Fill the name of your web site, your admin e-mail and password details.

The key part here is to choose the Load Migration Script option:

Fill the old table prefix _jos (unless your previous Joomla has used a different prefix) and leave the encoding unchanged unless needed and you are familiar with this option.

By clicking on the [Browse] button you have to select the previous Joomla 1.0.x migration dump from your Desktop.

Make sure to select the This script is a Joomla! 1.0 migration script. check box as well.

Next confirm the progress by clicking on the [Upload and execute] button.

Once the data is imported you should see the following screen:

Click on the [Next] button near to the upper right corner.

You need to completely remove the installation directory by using the File manager available in cPanel.

Now when you open the front end of your newly installed Joomla 1.5 you will see all the articles and data from the previous Joomla imported.